On Dr. Junaid Mohammed: why urge the Muslim to embrace peace? -By Ifeanyi Mmoh

Need we always urge the average Muslim from the north to embrace peace every time the opportunity to speak opened? Are they so dumb or illiterate to not have realized the economic value of peace to any people that they should be reminded of peace all the time? Assume they were, how long then do we think we can go on reminding them?

I have followed the reactions to Dr. Junaid’s unpalatable comment on IPOB and the President Buhari’s trip to Japan; many of which are direct, rebuking and critical. And I have decided to add my voice to what’s been trending so far. Over the years, I have grown to observe that the Hausas and recently the Fulanis of the north have used violence as a weapon of asserting self even when it is constitutionally or legally untenable to do so.

They have made it to look like no one else but they had the monopoly to wield aggression. If one should go by the recent comments credited to Dr. Junaid Mohammed, it’ll be practically impossible to not question his audacity to say that “IPOB will pay with their blood if they attempt an attack on Buhari.” Why are elders like Junaid Mohammed so daft and myopic?

Is it not appropriate to react in the manner that IPOB was going when so-called elders failed to do the needful? Since the attack on Senator Ike Ekweremadu in Nuremberg, Germany – which my humble self considers very appropriate for him – the political class has suddenly become so jittery. But who had cared to hear the grievances of these youth? Who had bothered to listen? Or do we all think that things will continue the way they are; that if you can’t beat status quo you join?

The point is: why shouldn’t the youth be angry at the system when it’s clearly against their interest? If the politicians had kept faith with the citizens who sent them for representation, would there have been an IPOB? Or the bandits? Or kidnapping? If the leaders had done the needful by making a conscious effort to be seen doing all within its powers to foster unity and strengthen national cohesion; would there have been a cause for fear?

Leaders like Dr. Junaid in the north mostly seek relevance when it comes to making threats and stirring their mostly illiterate, ignorant and backward subjects to do same. But when it comes to contributing to the economic growth of the region and by extension, Nigeria they prefer to pillage the states to fund Dubai, the UK and the US.

Quantify the amount of money that has so far gone into the northeast misfortunes(?) and ask yourself how sustainable that was if Nigeria had no oil and since the northeast as a whole gave almost nothing but ‘votes’ to foist an inept federal government on the federation. So if Nigeria still tastes like honey to Dr. Mohammed; it certainly does not for many others and this is why attempts are been made on highly placed individuals today. I am NOT an IPOB member and will never be but I think that what should bother us more was dealing with how Nigeria got into this mess instead of making threats.

The interaction of this administration with her citizen falls short of democratic practice. How a sensible government could clamp peaceful protesters into detention but then allow room for dialogue with bandits, militia men and killer-herdsmen, many of whom are not even Nigerians is still fairy tale to contemporary observers. Perhaps, Dr. Junaid Mohammed is yet to understand the philosophers’ quote that says: when impunity becomes law; mass revolt becomes a duty. Clearly, these aberrations are still not sufficient enough reasons for apologists like him to speak truth to power even if it was to save face and old age.

I am really ashamed for this generation of failures who parade themselves as elder statesmen. When elder statesmen like the Late Nelson Mandela busied himself with making a documentary of the Anti-apartheid struggle for the coming generation to understand what it all meant once he attained the age 70; his counterpart here still muddled themselves in murky waters just so they can cling to ethnic supremacy or religious eminence.

And in all these; it amazes me that they continued to feed on oil instead of reviving their region through agriculture to compliment proceeds from oil. It amazes me that after the threat they quite shamefully continued to depend on a monthly allocation that is generated from proceeds of crude oil sales. In all this, I still marveled at their high tolerance rate for illiteracy, street begging and lack of family planning. But these are people who claim to love the north.

While no one applauds or will ever applaud an attempt on the president because such would only amount to barbarism; it is important to straighten issues and to be able to call a spade a spade. Not too long ago, the EFCC uncovered mind-boggling sums of money in former governor Abdulaziz Yari’s bank account. These are the people who created the monster called Insecurity today.

If such monies were deployed to send street urchin and their business of begging off the streets; Nigeria would certainly be safer. Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s claims of innocence while as governor of Abia state has not explained why thousands of youth in Abia are running into the IPOB movement. If he had encouraged Prof. Barth Nnaji on the power station for Aba; more than half of those youths would’ve been engaged.

That said, the issue of folks using their positions as religious bigwigs to make threats is downright condemnable. It makes one sad, every time the average Muslim in this country was reminded to embrace peace. I ask again: Need we always urge the average Muslim from the north to embrace peace every time the opportunity to speak opened? Are they so dumb or illiterate to not have realized the economic value of peace?

For a Nigerian to issue threats on another Nigerian over an attempt-to-attack on Nigeria’s president only seems to pass one signal and which is: that the president belonged to them more than he belonged to the federation of Nigeria. In other words, since the president is a Muslim and Dr. Junaid himself equally a Muslim; any attempt on the life of the president was an attack on the Muslim nation and not an attack on Nigeria.

How preposterous? Those beating the drums of war should spare Nigeria the pains of prosecuting such a war. It is not a hidden fact that up till now, this federation has not truly recovered from the events of 1966 to 1970. The Hausa and Fulani has organized power to the exclusion of the Igbo (perhaps, to punish them thoroughly); but how much progress have they recorded since then.

The same region that held power for ages is still and will remain the poorest of the federation. The same region that controls the security apparatus of the federation cannot make itself secure or peaceful. The same region that hardly pays anything tribute to the coffers of the federation still suffered infrastructural incapacitation. Even if power was given to the north by Britain; wisdom was required for that power to be profitable.

Obviously, the north lacks the wisdom to tap into the potentials of this power. It does not understand that the best way to keep power was to devolve it. It does not understand that the best way to make progress was to enable others to make progress. This is why haven used religion to drive off every potential investor from its region; it is now devouring itself with Boko Haram and the ilk.

The power has not profited them and they do not want it to profit another. The British must have been wicked to hand power and not explain how that power can be profitable. Have you not wondered why the electronic you purchased carried a manual with it? Power was given by the Britons but it did not come with the manual to use it. The federation even leaked the manual so to speak by making the case for restructuring. But Dr. Junaid Mohammed and his north would hear none of that.

Do not forget also that the civil war – which has been blamed solely on the Late Biafran leader’s autocratic attitude – was fought because Mr. Gowon and his clique reneged on the Aburi Agreement which proposed devolution of powers! Truth is that I have left this kind of writing (for some time now) to concentrate my life on something more fulfilling because I always marveled even as a youth how shallow-minded certain so-called statesmen sounded whenever they talked.

At times it gets me thinking if the north thought that folks from the south are some joke or maybe even livestock that needed only to obey and follow its shepherd. Dr. Junaid is one of such whose mindset is unforgivably sectional. I couldn’t just hinder myself from reacting to his inappropriate comments. Only a fool would’ve spoken in that manner.

In conclusion, I’d like to ask this man – Dr. Mohammed – to share with Nigerians any memoir (if he has one) on how he brought up his children particularly if there were times when a child wanted to become an engineer or an actor but was forced against will to take to the profession of his father. Nigerians would like to know how this man handled such crisis and, believe me whatever he shares can tell us if he is diplomatic or a tyrant.

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh writes from Abuja. Reach me on twitter @GeorgeMmoh.